Paralympics Now Letting Trans Athletes Ruin Women’s Sports

The 2024 Olympiad might be in the history books, but the controversy surrounding males competing in women’s sports is far from over.

Dysfunction in women’s boxing thrust the debate about female athlete safety and fair competition into center ring for the entire Olympic games. Despite being disqualified by the International Boxing Association to compete as women fighters, Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting left Paris with gold medals in women’s boxing around their necks and cast a long shadow over the International Olympic Committee.

Now, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) is stoking a fresh gender scandal by allowing a 50-year-old male sprinter from Italy, who has identified as Valentina Petrillo since 2019, to compete in women’s track and field at the upcoming Paralympic Games in Paris. From August 28 to September 8, Petrillo is poised to overshadow the achievements of female athletes on the podium, all while the world watches in disbelief.

Here at home, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, along with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), have done nothing to calm the storm. Neither has prioritized fairness for women nor stood up for America’s female athletes in these cases.

Worse, the NCAA continues to insult female athletes as it defends itself against a landmark lawsuit over its perverse policy allowing males who feel like women to enter women’s competitions, steal female trophies, and intrude in women’s locker rooms. Recently, more plaintiffs have joined the lawsuit brought by Riley Gaines and other current and former NCAA female athletes, pushing back against this insanity.

NCAA’s Trans Controversy

Despite facing legal jeopardy and new demands from Congress, the NCAA is plunging headlong into another year of controversy, this time in college volleyball.

In April, Reduxx ran an exclusive report revealing that a male had been competing under the radar on a Division I NCAA women’s volleyball team:

“A feminine male has been participating in elite women’s collegiate sports in California after his biological sex was reportedly withheld from his teammates and his opponents. Blaire Fleming, born Brayden, is currently playing women’s Division I volleyball for San Jose State University in the reputable Mountain West Conference.”

This isn’t just a case of another male competing in women’s sports; this is about a 6’1” outside hitter who was recruited specifically to play women’s volleyball, despite his undeniable physical advantages. Blaire Fleming, who started at Coastal Carolina in 2020, has now made his way to San Jose State University (SJSU), where his presence on the court this season is sure to raise eyebrows and, more importantly, questions about fairness.

The NCAA’s refusal to adopt the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ (NAIA) common-sense policy, which states that only natal females can compete in the women’s category, is a glaring indictment of the organization’s priorities. Under President Charlie Baker’s leadership, the NCAA has shown nothing but ineptitude and cowardice. Baker even admitted that the NCAA has never researched the physical, emotional, or psychological harm its trans-inclusion policy inflicts on female athletes. Why? Because the NCAA doesn’t care. It’s more concerned with promoting its DEI agenda than protecting the rights and safety of women athletes.

By agreeing to follow NCAA policy, which clearly discriminates against female athletes, member institutions are putting their own athletes at risk. We know that injuries, particularly concussions in volleyball, become more severe as more males enter women’s sports. Yet, the NCAA turns a blind eye.

How will the “reputable” Mountain West Conference and its schools, including Boise State, Utah State, UNLV, Wyoming, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and others, defend forcing their female athletes to compete against a biological male? Will they, like the Ivy League did with Lia Thomas, use emotional blackmail to silence their players?

San Jose State opens the 2024 women’s volleyball season on August 30 at a tournament hosted by Cal State Fullerton. Their next stop is September 6 at the University of Iowa, home turf to former collegiate hoopster Caitlin Clark. Are Iowa fans aware of the spectacle coming to town? What is the University of Iowa athletics department telling its female athletes?

Concerned Women for America and a vast network of women, including champions like Martina Navratilova, are fed up with seeing our daughters become the social experiments of the NCAA’s transgender athlete agenda. These women are fighting back, demanding that biological reality take precedence over a man’s feminine identity.

The University of Washington recently pulled out of a verbal deal with rising volleyball star Tate Drageset after news broke that Drageset was male. UW recognized that rostering a male on its women’s team would not only be bad PR, but it would also be flagrantly unfair to its women athletes and a violation of their rights under Title IX.

These are the questions and concerns that should be at the forefront for the Mountain West Conference and the NCAA. Will SJSU force its female athletes to compete against a biological male? Will opponents stand for their rights, dignity, and safety, or will they sit these matches out in protest? The time for answers is now.